


The Rainbow Riot

by lurking_dragon



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: (Skifander really doesn't like twins), AU, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rainbow Riot AU, cloning, lots of characters, mentioned child death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 05:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17155811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurking_dragon/pseuds/lurking_dragon
Summary: In which, while fleeing Skifander, Klaus got the idea to clone Gil and Zeetha so that maybe the execution would halt while they figured out which was which, only to catch feelings for the clones and escape Skifander with all but Zeetha. The name of the fic refers to the fact that between the prologue and Chapter 1, Klaus permanently dyes the clones' hair in different colors so he can tell them apart.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is courtesy of the Girl Genius Discord server, which is a font of good if hilariously wacky ideas. It's thanks to them that I'm even posting here! I hope you enjoy this particular product of several hundred messages of excited talk.  
> Bold indicates fugue/Sparking/whatever you call it when a Spark is breaking physics.

**Prologue**

The twins are so _tiny._ Klaus can’t imagine who would even want to hurt something so tiny. But then, maybe all fathers feel this way about their children.

Shouting outside the room he’s hidden in snaps him back to the situation. To say Skifander does not like twins is an understatement, and the royal family gets no exception. Klaus makes sure the twins are still asleep and won’t start crying, and then begins to think.

 _They want to kill only one of the twins. It will probably be Gilgamesh. It’s too bad they’re not identical._ They both have the beginnings of Klaus’s fluffy hair. But Gilgamesh’s is brown, like Klaus’s hair before stress began to bleach it white, and Zeetha has her mother’s green. _If I kept the nurses away, it’d probably buy some time if they couldn’t tell which was which… hm. I_ **_f they couldn’t tell…_ **

Fortunately, Klaus had had the presence of mind to hide in a small lab under the palace. He knows from his adventures with Bill and Barry that the last place a person looks is under their feet. He sets the twins’ basket gently on a high stool he’s unlikely to use—all the cabinets are at eye level for him—and sets to work gathering his tools.

When he’s ready, there are seven cobbled-together spherical objects, each growing two new twins. Klaus makes sure each is working, and then sits on a table and takes a deep breath. _T **here. That should buy me some time, until they can figure out which twin is** which… _

As he starts to come down from fugue, a horrifying thought strikes him. _What if they just kill all but one?_ As he thinks about it, that one seems more and more likely. The thought is like a bucket of cold water, briefly shocking, but invigorating. Klaus gets up and starts to pace as he thinks. His first thought is derailed as more shouting echoes over his head, and he can’t remember what it was when he tries to get back on track. _What I need is somewhere safe to plan. But I’d need somewhere where twins aren’t in any more danger than single children…_

_Europa!_

* * *

 

Klaus peers out of the lab. The patrols seem to have retreated upstairs; as he listens, no sound comes from the corridors around him. He checks over his shoulder one last time, making sure the original twins are still asleep and the cloning machines won’t pop open and beep while he searches for a suitable disguise for them.

He tiptoes through the halls, looking for something that could plausibly get him out of the palace with two babies and seven cloning machines. He bypasses the covered lunch cart left in the middle of the hallway, which seems too obvious a gambit and thus is likely to be a trap. He instead sneaks toward the palace laundry, where he can steal a hamper and disguise the machines in there with dirty clothes. While he’s there, maybe he can steal a uniform…

Ideally, he would have chosen a uniform that _fit._ It would be less conspicuous--he remembers that time that Bill nearly got turned into an octopus hybrid because the extra sleeves for the Spark’s normal mooks had been hanging empty. It may just be the panic getting to him, because that’s not really equivalent to an ill-fitting uniform, but that’s what he thinks of. However, all the uniforms that are in his size are too stained to be presentable, doubtless waiting for treatment. He finds one that buttons across his chest, but the pants only come down to his calves and the sleeves stop just below his elbows. He yanks at them ineffectually, and then rolls them up so they won’t pester him. He does, however, find some elbow-length gloves for dealing with hazardous stain causes, and uses those to cover the stitching on his arms. As for his legs, he rolls up his socks and crosses his fingers that no one will look at the few centimeters not covered by socks or pants. A brimmed hat and a scarf complete the disguise…

No, wait, the bottle of armor polish does.

With spiky golden hair and a surly expression under the scarf around his mouth, Klaus wheels out the laundry hamper and heads for the lab where he left the children and the machines. He tries to think about _anything_ but what if searchers found them. Or what if he gets spotted. Or what if he gets caught _with_ the children.

He gets back to the lab and carefully scans for ambush. There’s no sign, which isn’t very reassuring--Skifander _is_ a warrior society. He carefully opens the door and breathes a sigh of relief. All the children are there. He checks on the hastily rigged gauges on the tops of the machines and sees they’re still less than halfway to completing the clones. Klaus considers leaving them in here until they’re done, but the longer he has the laundry hamper, the more likely someone will notice it gone. Besides, if he’s not out of the palace by the time the clones are finished, it’s likely they’ll start crying and attract attention. He’ll have to hurry. He loads in the machines and the original twins, cushioning them with the dirty laundry in the hamper. Gilgamesh whimpers, but Zeetha makes no noise.

He cleans up the lab, careful to leave no trace of his being there, and wheels the hamper out. He aims for the back tunnels where the cleaning crew can take shortcuts.

He hears bells toll in the distance and hides in another lab. _Those were the assembly bells._ Usually used to attract errant _zumils_ for training, sometimes the bells are used to call people to the palace steps for proclamations or to announce danger. Klaus estimates he has about thirty minutes before the danger escalates, with the entire city roused to look for him. He hurries through darkened tunnels, aiming for a back exit where he can get out of the city.

As he gets to the exit, he realizes he’ll need clothes and food for the babies, once the machines finish. Gilgamesh is sound asleep, but Zeetha is starting to fuss, so he picks her up and bounces her as he hurries back toward the nursery. _The kingdom sent so many little onesies that I can take enough, no problem. And a couple cans of baby formula--thank goodness for Sparks._ Baby formula is a relatively new lifesaver, invented by a Spark and new mother who just wanted her child to sleep through the night. Klaus has seen her around a couple times--Zantabraxus’s mother invited her to the palace to honor her achievement. Right now, he’s thankful for it.

He gets to the royal nursery--empty of guards, since there’s no heirs in there to protect--and starts going through cabinets. _Two, no, three cans of formula, twenty onesies, oh, blocks, they’ll need something to amuse themselves until I get home, blankets..._ He mixes up a bottle of formula for Zeetha and sets her in her bassinet while he finds a way to carry the supplies in one arm and her in the other.

He hears clattering right outside the door. He bundles everything he’s found into a blanket-sack and hides in a closet. His heart turns to ice when he looks out of the closet and sees Zeetha, fallen asleep on her side.

Two guards come in and one shouts. “Hey! The princess!”

Klaus curses internally. He’ll never get her out now… but Zanta will still have a child. That gives his planning pause. _I’m going through all this so we don’t have to lose a child. But Zeetha will be safe without her twin here, and I can get Gilgamesh and the clones out._ He comes to the hard decision that he should leave Zeetha.

When the guards leave, shouting that the princess has been found, Klaus slips out with the blanket sack and gives Zeetha a kiss on the head. _Become a great warrior-queen, little one._ He sneaks out of the nursery.

Klaus almost expects something to have gone wrong, and the laundry cart to be gone. When he turns the last corner and the laundry cart is still there, he checks that all the cloning machines are still there and working before taking a deep breath.

 _Now to get out of Skifander._ The gauges on the cloning machines show that the clones are just about halfway to being complete. He probably wants to get out before that happens. Toting seven machines and two--one baby is doubtless far easier than toting six--fifteen children. Trouble is, he doesn’t remember how Lucrezia got him _into_ Skifander, what with her knocking him out _thank you very much._ He devotes a minute to self-indulgent grumbling before settling down to seriously think about how he’s going to get to Europa.

As ideas flicker through his mind, he begins to remember some of the legends he read when trying to learn Skiff from children’s books. One especially keeps popping up, _The Queens Are Called To Council._ Zanta had pointed out to him the supposed mirror from the legend, but said that the mirror didn’t really work; she’d declared that the yearly attempt was just an excuse for a party (not one that she minded, but still). Since he seems to be stuck on this idea, he lets his train of thought go.

 _Queen’s Mirror. Probably some sort of communication or teleportation device. But the legends call it magic? That proves nothing, Sparks were called wizards in Andronicus’s time. It’s probably some sort of highly advanced science, with the method lost to time. But there’s been attempts to analyze it. Maybe I should see if I can look at the notes for that project._ It’s the best idea so far. Klaus gets up and, wheeling the laundry hamper in front of him, leaves the palace and heads for the Mirror.

He has to dodge around several people, but they’re so happy to have Zeetha back (without her inconvenient twin--that makes Klaus’s teeth grind when he hears some guards gossiping about it) that they don’t even pay attention to the blond guy in servant’s uniform pushing a laundry cart. Giving Gilgamesh a bottle of formula fixed the problem of his possibly crying and giving away his position. When he gets to the Mirror labs, he doesn’t even think anyone gave him a second glance. He checks the gauges on the machines and sees they’re a little over halfway. _Excellent._ He picks up the notes and settles down to reading them. He also grabs a pen and paper, in order to take notes.

_Ha, notes on the notes. All right, stay **ing focused.** _

When Klaus surfaces from fugue, his notes cover the front and back of five sheets of paper. He looks them over and over the notes from the researchers, and thinks, _I think I know how to make it work._ Pulling the laundry cart after him, he starts to fiddle with the back of the Mirror.

Thirty minutes later, he makes a final connection and steps back to check his work. He hears shouting and peers around to find that the mirror is glowing green. _Great. I was hoping to do this quietly._ He grabs the cart and wheels it around to the front of the mirror.

“CHUMP!” Zantabraxus, at six feet tall, towers over the crowd. “Chump, wait!”

Klaus hesitates, wondering if he could go back and they could make it work, but he sees a _lot_ of swords.

“Chump! KLAUS!”

 _I’m… I’m sorry, Zanta._ Klaus jumps through the mirror, bringing the cart with him.

* * *

 

He’d hoped that the mirror would be fixable after he went through, and then he could negotiate from home. The pieces around him indicate that it won’t be possible, though. He goes to pick one up, but he can feel the heat radiating off it before he can even touch it and decides that picking it up wouldn’t be a good idea.

Gilgamesh starts to whimper, apparently having dropped his bottle. Klaus picks it up and hands it to him.

The machines start to ping, one after each other.

 _Great. Let’s hope that when I get home, Mother and Father will help. I never thought I’d be a father without a wife._ Toting the cart after him, Klaus sets out to find a settlement.

Instead, what he finds as he travels is a blasted wasteland, cautious villages, and tales of tragedy. _The Heterodyne Boys are gone. Shamblers, people turned to mindless monsters by wasps that enslave them to the Other. The Fifty Families and Spark-rulers devastated. Boulders dropped from the skies._

He comes home. Castle Wulfenbach is in ruins. The kennels for the Sparkhounds are crushed; he can see the bones of the ones that were trapped among the rubble.

At least people remember what he looks like. He stays in a tavern and dodges questions about the fifteen children he’s toting around.

_Europa is even less safe than Skifander._

_I’ll have to *make* it safer._


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarvek comes to Castle Wulfenbach and makes friends with the Holzfäller kids, fifteen clones with brightly-colored hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Andy, Tarvek's pet mimmoth, is canon. His name comes from Persephone_Kore and khilari's amazing fic, Well Met at Mechanicsburg. (Link to that--you really should read it after you're done here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955354?view_full_work=true )

Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus, Prince of Sturmhalten, kneels and looks his son in the eye, putting his hand on a thin shoulder. “Now, Tarvek, you remember what to do once you get to the school?” 

Tarvek nods and pushes his glasses up his nose, but Aaronev ignores that and keeps talking. “You’re to make alliances with the strong players, learn whatever you can, and find out whatever the Baron knows about the Lady!” 

“Yes, father. I’ll send you updates as I uncover information.” Tarvek looks up and sees a small dirigible descending. “That must be the flyer.” 

Aaronev lets him go and Tarvek grabs the handle of his luggage. As the dirigible lands, Aaronev takes a step back, so he’s not concealing his seven-year-old son. 

Tarvek takes a deep breath. Logically, he knows that if he’s very careful, and doesn’t get stupid, nothing will go wrong. He’s had the beginnings of Smoke Knight training, so he can avoid getting caught. He’s smart enough to pass all the classes and thus avoid attention, but he knows not to be  _ too _ stellar or people will pay attention to him. He even has the beginnings of a plan to steal blueprints and learn the layout of the airship. But his stomach is tight and he keeps wondering about what would happen if he got caught. He takes another deep breath, resists pushing up his glasses again, and looks up at the courier. “Hello. I’m Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvoraus.” 

The courier gives him a slight smile. “Hello, Prince Sturmvoraus. If you are ready, you may board. I’ll get your luggage.”

A trumpeting noise makes Tarvek turn. His pet midmoth, Andy (short for Andronicus), charges out to the landing field. Aaronev has to jump out of the way or be knocked over. 

Tarvek puts out his hands and Andy stops and trumpets at him. “Hey there, Andy. I love you too, but… I don’t know if the Baron will allow pets.” And he isn’t looking forward to nightmares without Andy there to hug, but he has to bear it. He will bear it. 

The courier reaches out to let Andy sniff his hand. “The Baron has actually ruled that, if they don’t disturb the other students or the faculty, small to medium-size pets may come with their owners. I think you just  _ barely _ fit the requirements for medium, don’tcha, little guy? I know I loaded a dog who was a bit bigger than you!” 

Tarvek takes a deep breath and smiles. “Thank you, sir. If you wouldn’t mind, in that case, I need to get his food.” 

“Of course. I’ll load your luggage and get him settled. Come on, then!” The courier leads Andy up onto the dirigible, while Tarvek goes at a fast but dignified pace to get Andy’s things. 

When he comes back, the courier helps him move Andy’s bed into the corner where Andy has taken up residence and set up his area for flight. Tarvek curls up in the seat next to it. 

The courier checks on him one last time before flight. “It’s a long flight, kiddo. Castle Wulfenbach is currently over Beograd. Have you got anything to read?”

Tarvek pats the pages of the book open on his knee.  _ A History Of The Storm King’s Muses. _

“Excellent!” The courier disappears, and shortly after, the dirigible lifts off. Tarvek reads for a while, and eventually falls asleep. 

~~~

He wakes up as they fly over Beograd. Andy snuffles his shoe and he reaches down to pat the midmoth as he looks out the window. Below them, Beograd, currently being rebuilt from its destruction during the Long War, spreads out across the land. 

The courier knocks on the cabin door. “Hey, there, we’re about to meet up with Castle Wulfenbach. Get your stuff ready.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tarvek packs away his book, grabs his luggage, and pets Andy as the nerves return.  _ It’ll be okay. I’m clever. I’m fast. There’s not even any Smoke Knights here… probably. _ He checks around and, seeing he’s left nothing, leaves the cabin with Andy following docily. 

The dirigible shudders as it lands, and Tarvek hears shouting. The courier takes his luggage and the bag he’s helpfully provided for Andy’s stuff and smiles encouragingly. “They’re just shouting instructions to each other to help us land smoothly. We should be disembarking…  _ now. _ ” On cue, the door opens, and Tarvek hurries to catch up with the courier’s long strides. He keeps a tight hold on Andy, in case the midmoth decides to go running off. Andy, however, sticks close.

At the door to the hangar, the courier stops and speaks with a woman in a clean uniform. “This is as far as I go. This woman here will be your escort to the school.” 

The woman looks Tarvek over and her eyes slide right off him. Unless he does something memorable, she’ll forget about him as soon as he’s settled. That’s just what he wants. 

They walk along gray hallways until they come to a door. The woman opens the door and leads him to a room with two beds. One is neatly made, and one has a mess of books and schoolwork on it. Tarvek sits on the made bed and Andy settles at the foot to take a nap. 

The woman stays longer than Tarvek assumed she would, making sure his luggage is unpacked and his things are neatly arranged. Then she escorts him out to the common room, which is set on a lower level than the pathways around to the rooms. There are some kids his age, some older, some younger, and they all look at him. The woman announces him as “Prince Aaronev Tarvek of Sturmhalten” and leaves. 

Tarvek takes a deep breath and smiles. “Hello, I’m Tarvek. You are?” 

A tall boy steps forward and offers his hand to shake. “I’m Theo DuMedd. This is Sleipnir O’Hara…” 

As Theo finishes the introductions, raised voices come from the end of the hall. The door slams open and a horde of children Tarvek’s age pours in. 

Tarvek retreats slightly up the stairs and counts fifteen, eight boys and seven girls. They’re mostly identical, except for different clothes and hair in a literal rainbow of shades. 

The girls run past Tarvek and take up sentry positions on the railing. Theo joins Tarvek and whispers, “Those are the Hozlfällers. Orphans the Baron took in. No one knows their parents.” 

Tarvek blinks and looks down. The boys have all gathered and started arguing. One with long purple hair sweeps it over his shoulder and declares in a loud voice, “Magnets were made by a Spark!”

One of the others, one with puffy white hair, yells back, “No! Magnets happened naturally!” 

Tarvek blinks as the boys keep yelling and then looks at Theo. “Um… does this happen often?”

Theo shrugs. “As often as other seven-year-old boys argue. It’s just overwhelming because there are so many of them, and yet they can never come to a conclusion without a tiebreaker because there’s an even number of them.”

Tarvek looks up at their sisters. “But there’s fifteen of them.”

Sleipnir joins Theo. “Their sisters say that the boys can work out their problems themselves. They don’t have the same problem because their white one isn’t there.” 

Tarvek, rather than ask and make people think he’s unobservant, looks at the Holzf ällers and their hair colors. Sure enough, there’s no white-haired girl, even though all the other colors have a match. There also isn’t a green in either group, which is strange.

The black-haired boy slips out of the group, where he was defending the white-haired boy, and walks over to Tarvek. “Hi! You’re new. I’m Ody. Do you happen to know where magnets came from?” 

Tarvek jumps and thinks. “Um, I think they were discovered in the fifteenth century.” 

Ody leans forward. “So, definitely not Spark-made?”

“No, naturally discovered.”

“HA!” Ody whirls and runs back. “Natural! THEY’RE NATURAL!” 

The boys break up, muttering. Tarvek takes a deep breath and looks around. “Is that all the students?” 

Princess Zulenna of Holfung-Borzoi sniffs in the direction of the Holzfällers. “Yes. Even those of no consequence.”  She turns to Tarvek. “You know, now that you’ve broken up one of their fights, they’ll come to you to break up others unless you ignore them.” 

Tarvek looks back at her, startled.  _ That’s odd for a princess to say. _ “But a ruler has a duty to settle disagreements brought to them.” 

Zulenna huffs and turns away.

Tarvek is thinking of something to say to Theo when the door opens again and a blonde woman in black leather strides in. “Shel Holzfäller!” 

One of the boys, the blue one, jumps. “Yes, Madame Von Pinn?” 

Theo whispers to Tarvek, “That’s Madame Von Pinn. She’s our main caretaker. She’s kinda scary.” 

Von Pinn crosses her arms. She taps one long, black claw against her sleeve as she says, “Would you happen to know anything about the circumstances that led to Princess Zulenna’s entire shoe closet being on the  _ ceiling _ of her room, as opposed to its usual location on the  _ floor _ ?” 

Zulenna wails and runs to a room on the far end of the hall. “Shel,” meanwhile, grins up at Von Pinn. “Nope! I was in the kitchens the entire time, cleaning grease traps and reflecting on the error of my ways.” 

“Oh? Because I could have sworn I saw someone with blue hair ducking out of her room.” 

Tarvek, squinting and pushing his glasses up to follow the action, notices something weird about the white-haired boy. The roots of his hair are a pale blue. 

The construct, Von Pinn, notices too. “Or perhaps I have falsely accused you. Bill, where were you while Shel was cleaning the grease traps?” 

“Bill” sputters. The blond boy--really, his hair is more yellow than anything--turns smartly on his heel. “ _ Bill! _ How could you frame your own brother? Such brazenness! Such callousness!” 

Yet another Holzfäller boy, this one with brown hair, sighs and smacks his forehead with his palm. “ _ Ilya… _ ” 

The girls all head toward their brothers. Notably, only two take the stairs Tarvek is standing on. The others just jump over the railing. Von Pinn rushes over with uncanny speed, considering the tight skirt she’s wearing, to catch them. “No jumping off the railings!” 

“Ilya,” meanwhile, has worked himself into a good speech. “Madame Von Pinn, if you will allow us, we will make certain that Bill regrets his wayward actions.” 

Von Pinn sets the girls down. “Thank you for your offer, Ilya, but you are not the designated disciplinarians. I will see to Bill’s punishment. Shel, I apologize for falsely accusing you.” She takes Bill’s hand and leads him out of the room. 

Ilya shrugs at his leaving sibling and turns around. The yellow-haired girl frowns at her brothers. “You shouldn’t wind up Von Pinn like that.” The rest, as the other Holzfällers gather around, is lost to Tarvek’s ears. 

~~~

Classes start the next day. According to the test Tarvek took before he was accepted to the school, he doesn’t need any remedial classes before he can join the other students. He still expects that he’ll need to do some catchup work. As he heads into the first classroom, he cases it to see if he can figure out what the teacher is like. 

Unfortunately for this aim, it seems to be a multi-teacher classroom. A chemistry project--what looks like mimmoth bones defleshing--sits on a shelf next to a bookshelf full of age-appropriate books. The blue-haired Holzfäller girl--Theo told him that her name is Zydre--runs over and peers at the mimmoth. Then her brown-haired sister--Zahav--pulls her to her desk. He can’t hear what she’s saying over the din of people settling down. 

Tarvek looks around and taps the empty seat next to the brown-haired Holzfäller boy. “Hey, is this seat taken?”

The boy looks up. “No, you can sit there. I’m Gil.” 

“I’m Tarvek.” 

Gil perks up as Tarvek sits next to him. “Oh, the tiebreaker Ody found!”

“Uh--yes.” Tarvek doesn’t know how Gil can keep up with all his siblings. He has enough trouble keeping up with his cousins, and that’s mostly keeping up with who’s still a threat to the throne. He makes sure he has all the books needed, checking them against the packing list he memorized and triple-checked before he left. The teacher comes in and begins the class, quelling any further conversation. 

The lessons are easy for Tarvek. That’s good, because he doesn’t want to be left behind and thought of as stupid. It’s what he assumes will be the standard education for rulers of Europa unless-- _ until _ \--the Wulfenbach empire falls, a mix of maths, sciences, and languages. 

When class is over, everyone files out. Tarvek is about to leave when the teacher pats his shoulder. “Sturmvoraus, correct? Are you keeping up with everything you’re learning?” 

Tarvek pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Yes, sir. Thank you.” 

“That’s good. You are dismissed.”

Tarvek makes a quick escape from the classroom and walks out into a crowd. In the middle, he can hear angry yelling. Tarvek ducks and dodges through until he can see the cause of the commotion. One of the older students--Fifty Families, minor Sparks all--is holding a book above his head, while Gil Holzfäller jumps and yells and tries to get the book back. Tarvek looks around for Holzfäller’s siblings, but they’re having a hard time getting through the other side of the crowd. “Hey! Hey!” He ducks under another arm and runs up to the two in the middle. “What’re you doing?” 

The older student lowers his arm slightly as he tries to think of what he could say that doesn’t paint himself as the bully. Tarvek jumps and snatches the book, which is now within jumping distance of an eight-year-old with Smoke Knight preliminary training. “Here.” He hands the book to Gil, who clutches it to his chest. “Now, you’re the oldest of your family, correct? Which means you’ll be the one in charge someday.”

The older student nods, slightly stunned.

“Then you should  _ act _ like it! The duty of a ruler is to  _ protect _ those under their rule and help their subjects! A truly good ruler doesn’t pick on those weaker than them just because they’re bigger.” Tarvek crosses his arms and stares up. “Do you understand?” 

The older student blinks at him, but nods again. Tarvek turns on his heel and marches toward the crowd, which is dispersing now that the scene is over. Gil catches up to him. “Thank you.”

“It was no trouble.”

Another Holzfäller joins them. “You really care about that, huh?” It’s the red-headed boy, Zil, Tarvek thinks. “What a ruler should be like?” 

“Well, I am--”  _ the heir to the Lightning Crown. _ “--a prince of Sturmhalten.” 

The purple-haired Holzfäller joins them at a corner, where the halls form a T-junction. “Don’t suppose a truly good ruler would turn down joining us for lunch? I’m Dril.” 

Tarvek shakes Dril’s hand. “Tarvek.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So it begins! I hope to get chapters out monthly, but we'll see how that goes. I've never been good with writing deadlines, so if I disappear for long stretches of time, it doesn't necessarily mean something bad happened to me.


End file.
